Character Customisation and Advancement

Your Character. Yes, yours

When you create a character you define a physique which is the basic shape and tone of your body. You do not choose from preset body types but rather between extremes of lithe, muscular and heavy. You may also choose a height and possibly other physical attributes. Various features, hair, facial hair and skin tone will also be selectable. You can of course choose your gender and any name you like.

Skills

These are the skills planned for Sui Generis:

Light Weapons

Heavy Weapons

Ranged Weapons

Shields

Armour

Insight

Concentration

Meditation

You will be limited by a global skill total which is distributed amongst your individual skills, it will not be possible to train all skills to the highest attainable level. You choose which skills to train, untrain or keep at their current level. To train a particular skill it must see relatively frequent use. Actively training a skill by more frequent, repeated use will not increase your proficiency, progression will remain gradual. This mechanic exists so that players spend more time playing the game and experiencing the world rather than performing repetitive tasks in order to achieve more rapid advancement.

Skills have the following major expertise levels:

Inept

Aspirant

Novice

Expert

Adept

Master

A milestone is granted for reaching each of level of expertise beyond Inept. You can choose amongst several milestones further specialising your use of any given skill. Milestones may grant new abilities or improve particular aspects of a skill. As an example, Light Weapons will feature milestones such as Dual Wield and Defensive Fighting. Any milestone may be retrained, but this requires also retraining the skill from its previous level of expertise.

Skills are never required to grant a proficiency in using equipment but only in improving the character's effectiveness with it. All equipment can be used without artificial requirements. Equipment also does not belong to specific categories. For example, a weapon has a variable weight putting it somewhere on the scale of light to heavy.

Thaumaturgy

A huge aspect of character advancement is thaumaturgy. Though you can make some use of all forms of thaumaturgy you must choose one as innate to your character. This is your natural talent and where you will excel.

The forms of thaumaturgy currently planned are:

Displacement

Energy

Light

Body

Mind

Force

Each form of thaumaturgy grants specific effects rather than having a particular purpose. For example, a necromancer would use powerful Mind thaumaturgy to evoke the transcended mind of the dead, causing them to take control of their remains. The revived dead control their decayed bodies by means of their own dormant capacity for thaumaturgy.

Thaumaturgic power does not undergo gradual progression over time, rather some portion of the transcendent mind of others is absorbed in their moment of death. The more advanced the transcendence of the mind being sundered, the more of it may be absorbed. Some thaumaturgic knowledge, different from raw power, may also be gleaned during such moments.

Thaumaturgic knowledge may also be gained by natural insight where one's innate powers are concerned, and other sources of knowledge or learning besides.

You will initially have a basic command of your power, using it in its simplest form. With time you will learn more elaborate ways of shaping its outcome, refining its use and combining your individual insights into completely new effects. As a basic example, you may learn to turn Force Blast into an omnidirectional effect, pushing things away in any direction; you may also learn to make the force highly coherent, thus turning it into a shield. The two things combined may lead you to make a bubble that shields you from all directions.

What about stats/attributes?

Sui Generis does not feature attributes as seen in many RPGs that can be advanced over time. Innate qualities such as your strength, dexterity or toughness are affected by your initial choice of physique. Currently we do not have specific mechanics planned for altering or improving these though they may be introduced. There are also no health points but simply resistance to various forms of damage which may be partly natural and partly conferred by equipment and various effects.

We hope this gives you an idea of the possibilities for creating unique characters with interesting abilities. Our goal is to provide many possible builds and unique play styles which you can tailor to your personal preference.

If you have more specific questions please visit our forums so that together we can build a body of information that everyone can benefit from.

Comments

Although the levels seem to be the wrong way round, I thought It would be more like:

Inept
Novice
Aspirant
Adept
Expert
Master

And not so sure about having stats that can't be improved, but not having your standard hit points bar sounds interesting, instead perhaps just a bloody screen or the clutching of the players wounds as they run.

Also, I'm very keen to see how necromancy may work in this game. Personally I'd love to be able to raise a small group of maybe 4 skeletons and equip them with weapons and armour looted from my enemies as I crush those that stand before me!

Interests me greatly. These are some of the talking points I bring up in conversations about RPG design, and it would be great to see them explored. The only piece I would add, and only as a matter of discussion, is on class. The idea of class was merely invented to give an idea of what you trained to do before this adventure began. I don't think it's unreasonable that someone would spend the majority of their time become adept at a basic concept of prowess. As an example, a Navy SEAL isn't going to be a radar operator. The two are simply conflicting and we need both. The jack-of-any-trade approach of "modern" RPG's is perhaps more archaic and far more idiotic of an approach. Your ideas sound intriguing and I'd love to see someone break the convential mold, even if just to see what its like.

The system looks like it will reward the "thinking man", rather than being a gear check throughout the game, did i get it correct ? Hope it will be shaped in that vein, cause i'm sure that old skool rpg lovers are dying to have a such game for years.

I'm really sick of seeing games that only caters casuals, just because they were doing games to have a higher profit from it, thus most of the time they can't stand in test of time naturally.

* Also, i'm very curious if ever different armor categories will be implemented, such as light, medium, heavy that may effect stamina regeneration, agility, speed etc. of a character ?

It feels like you've given this a lot of thought (which of course is what you said). I like it. I love the idea of skills which can be advanced but don't need to be spammed, and I think the rest of it is pretty well thought out too.

The only thing I don't get is how health is handled. "Resistance to various forms of damage" is okay, but how is damage applied? Are different parts of the body damaged separately, so that the character might become lame? Will the character bleed and become weak? If the character can die, what conditions are required for that to happen?

Ok I'm going to have to up my pledge. Sounds like a lot of meticulous thought has already been put into a lot more than just the engine. On a side note, I think my entire goal at this point upon starting the game will be to become powerful/skilled enough to take down that 'ogre'.